


Komm, selge Ruh

by AlgernonInWonderland



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Draftworu - Freeform, Evangelion is cyclical, Happy Ending?, It all comes tumbling down tumbling down tumbling down, It all returns to nothing, M/M, Rebuild of Evangelion Sequel/Time Loop Theory, The Final Messenger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlgernonInWonderland/pseuds/AlgernonInWonderland
Summary: SEELE makes him the perfect angelic being, too beautiful, too talented, very obedient and happily so. He will be the perfect corpse for the most perfect plan. The Angel of Free Will who cannot decide what he craves for.Everybody finds lovein the end





	Komm, selge Ruh

He dies, and he dies, and he dies again, or at least he thinks he does. Sometimes he is the one to take his own life, sometimes others do it for him. How many times, he has lost count of it, if it has truly happened at all. When he wakes up, the sea might be blue, sometimes it is red and there is little he can do about Not that he is absolutely sure that the sea was ever one of those two colours in one of his pasts lives, if they even exist, he is not sure of that, these are faint reminiscences, or perhaps just hallucinations. There is so little he can do floating in LCL all day. Was he ever blond? He has little certainty about anything. These questions feel all very futile, these thoughts are not suitable for a body this young.

 

He is Tabris the angel of free will, they tell him, yet he fails to see any freedom in being put in a tank until the old men find some sort of use for him. If there is anything he wishes to choose, it is his own death. Yes, he is a being-for-death, so why should he bother staying alive at all? Sometimes, he has flashbacks of another life in which he had scars on his wrists. He remembers — or at least he thinks that’s remembering— the old men trying to keep him alive no matter what. Has this ever happened? It makes his head ache. He knows his mission, he knows he must meet Adam, be reunited with him, and then it will be all over. There will be no “then”. Only a few more years. All will be right in the world.

 

Time flies, and he waits and waits and waits some more with very few people he can truly talk to. The nurses are mostly silent, the old men sometimes pass by, the younger doctor, Ikari Yui he thinks she’s called, but it is really muddy in his head, stops showing up one day and so he forgets about her. There is little he can recall about all this time, only that even then he wanted to get out of this place without a name. And that every night he is plagued by these visions he cannot make sense of, of an older him, the same at its core despite all the small differences. He is almost an old soul in a juvenile body, but not quite. 

 

“Tabris” is not the kind of name that allows one to mingle with human beings with more ease. They give him a new one. It will be his bond to the Lilims, they tell him. As if SEELE’s members were something other than mere men themselves. And so he is called Nagisa Kaworu. It is the name of a romantic hero in an old book that is very important, this is one of the first things he remembers with absolute clarity. He likes it better than the other one. But it is not the one Kiel Lorenz and the others use whenever they address him, whenever they have something important to tell him.

 

He, Kaworu, has no time to be annoyed at that. If he chooses to live rather than to try to end his days now, he needs to find something, anything that will make him want to stay alive, at least until the inevitable happens. Having such thoughts when you should be seven years old by Lilim standards is weird, some would say upsetting. He tries to escape the facility once or twice And fails each time. SEELE is not surprised that he tried to run away. He isn’t punished too harshly, of course, but he is reminded that he needs to do as he is told, otherwise there will be pain for everyone. He knows he has some kind of powers, yet they are dormant, he cannot use them against his jailers. Or can he call them that?

 

SEELE makes a great mistake by introducing him to music. It sounds innocuous enough to give him a piano, an old CD player with several recordings of classical music. Kaworu does not view it as a means to escape his life, by now he has understood that reality is not something he can run away from, unless he stops existing completely, and at this point he can’t have that. No, music helps him make sense of it all, to feel fuller with his own being. Beethoven truly is the pinnacle of the Lilim culture, it sends shivers down his spine, it makes his body ache for more, the sheer power of music. If he can see beauty in it… Well perhaps he can understand the way human being see things, perhaps he can understand them completely, one hundred percent.

 

Or perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all. SEELE fabricates him, makes him… It is almost ludicrous to say it, but they make him the perfect angelic being, too beautiful, too talented, very obedient and happily so. He will be the perfect corpse for the most perfect plan. The Angel of Free Will who cannot decide what he craves for. Kaworu does not rebel, in fact he tries to avoid confrontation as much as he can. Kiel Lorenz jokes that he would make the idea son-in-law. They make sure he cannot hurt himself, that all he knows is music and some bits and pieces of abridged philosophy, fairy tales and astronomy. His way of viewing things may not be human but if he does not have complete human tools to communicate his thoughts, he will be but a pawn in a greater game of chess.

 

And it works. He does not try to flee, he enjoys the gifts they give him, and he listens to them with greater care now that they have given him some of the keys to understanding what his purpose is. They choose the words to describe it cautiously. Kaworu has no reason to doubt them. He finds what they promise a little sad, however. His sacrifice does not matter to him, he will do what he must, besides, he won’t truly be there when he dies. Because he will die, he is sure of it, despite what SEELE tells him, despite what he is. But what about the Lilim, will they be happy to be melted as one, a perfect glassy sea, undisturbed and serene? What about music? They tell him that answers will come to him soon, that all he has to do is wait. 

 

They will have him become a pilot, the old men decide, though NERV will know nothing of it. They don’t even need to train him, he will be able to synchronise with about any Evangelion Unit, falsifying the paperwork does not take long. They only leave his birthdate as dramatic and mysterious as they can. He will be introduced to NERV when the time is right, and do what he was fated to do. More importantly than that, however, the old men can use the data they’ve collected and use it for the Mass Production Units. And at this point, they are sure Tabris is under their control, willing to work towards a common goal. They have already won.

 

Kaworu watches the footage of the Test Unit, Evangelion Unit-01, he reads later in the report, going against Sachiel and cannot help but wince. How a species which has composed symphonies can display this much violence and cruelty, when Sachiel’s mission is righteous… Though SEELE does not regard the angel’s attack as kindly as he does, they are right, Instrumentality must be achieved, no matter what it takes, even if it is his own life. There is something deeply unsettling about the purple behemoth, the way it goes from clumsiness and pain to absolute savagery. There is something inside it, not only its pilot, whose name he doesn’t even know at this point. When Kiel Lorenz tells him who was inside the beast, something resonates within Kaworu.

 

The Third Child. Ikari Shinji. The name is… He can’t explain it, but he’s heard it before, he knows what he looks like even without looking at the pictures, the delicate face, the blue eyes, the fragile frame, he knows what the boy’s voice sounds like. And though he has never felt strong emotions before, outside of amazement at the Lilim’s culture, something stirs inside of him. He was born to meet him. This realisation seems illogical, foolish, he has been told countless times before that he will meet Adam and that this is his true heart, his true purpose. Yet the visions are more vivid every night, reading the name has awakened something he doesn’t understand.

 

His powers awaken at last, unexpectedly. He finds himself able to produce an AT Field, though he has no use for it, at least for now. He can fly without wings. He truly is the perfect image of what the Lilim had depicted as angels. This is what they call irony, isn’t it? NERV won’t be able to see through it, they might not even notice because of how convenient, how Lilim-like his appearance is. Perhaps he has become too human? He feels a little lonely now, and being human means being alone after all, he has read the words a thousand times. He isn’t that, he reminds himself, Lilims shrivel and vanish in the blink of an eye. Not him. He would be able to survive a lot longer than any of them could ever hope to, for millennia if he so desired. Would he wish to live this long?

 

Months and months fly by, more and more angels die fruitlessly. In the meantime, Kaworu is dormant, floating in a tank of LCL, as he waits. His time is near, he can feel it. He is woken up whenever some interesting development occurs. The arrival of the Second Child, her demise, the disappearance of the First… And Ika— No, Shinji, Shinji suffers, in battle, and outside of Unit-01 too, he can guess from the reports — long sentences, a few pictures from time to time. Learning this pains Kaworu more than he had expected. Soon, soon, he tells himself. He knows the images that appear in his mind should be nightmarish, his death, over and over, the Black Moon rising up in the skies while the other one bleeds. Yet he accepts it all serenely. All of this is not for him to decide.

 

Finally the day comes. He is given a school uniform, an ID Card for NERV, some other clothes too, so that he will look every bit the part of the new pilot rather than SEELE’s trump card. They trust him to go where he must. Tokyo 3 is completely deserted when he arrives. No one is meant to pick him up, no need to go to the nearest shelter either. And he knows where his place is, where he will be and how things will go. His heart swells with emotion. He hums to himself softly as he walks through the wasteland. It is almost nighttime when he reaches his destination, the clouds are speckled with gold, the sun will soon go down. His chest tightens at the sight of the lake and he doesn't know why. He mustn’t run away. He mustn’t run away. He keeps on walking, calmly.

 

He has been there before, hasn’t he? Or has he? He thinks he remember swimming here with Shinji under the moonlight, Shinji clinging to him so that he wouldn’t drown. Or perhaps he has dreamt it, perhaps it has never happened outside his mind. He finds the angel statue, and floats to it, not allowing the water — tinged orange with the setting sun— to touch him. He gets lost in the expanse and keeps singing to himself. He has the feeling that the boy will be there anytime now, he doesn’t even have to look to his right, he’ll hear the footsteps on the strand. The cicadas quiet down, Kaworu keeps singing. The last colours of the day wash out, everything turns a dull blue.

 

Will he come at all? This feels different from the previous times. But he keeps humming to himself and watches as the small waves wash the sand away… Yes, the water is decidedly not red this time. The moon is beautiful tonight, it shines bright on his too pale skin. He really feels like some hero in a novel, a perfect image, the role suits him after all. Something is on the move. Or is it someone? Kaworu stops singing to listen more closely. Yes, there he is, Shinji, lost in his thoughts, certainly looking at the lake like he is. Kaworu knows he won’t notice him at first, and so, he starts singing again. At last, the boy turns to him. It is time. 

 

“Singing is great. Singing enriches the soul. It’s the crowning achievement of the civilisation that the Lilim created. Don’t you agree… Ikari Shinji?”

 

Kaworu finds the words without even thinking of them, his face the very picture of serenity, and perhaps a touch of amusement. He has the feeling he knows what the boy will say. He studies the face that looks at him with interest and longing. Yes, he is exactly like he had expected him to be. He is beautiful without knowing it, and tormented, tired and vulnerable, fragile and precious, ready to pour his heart out. He is so terribly human. Something flashes in Shinji’s eyes. Recollection? Or only surprise at the fact that…

 

“My name…” Shinji says, and his voice is somehow familiar, even though they’ve never met. And the way he says it… 

 

Kaworu’s lips move and speak the words he has spoken a thousand times before. He will be friendly, and charismatic, and everything Shinji has ever dreamt of. But it doesn’t come out right, his words are laced with nostalgia and longing, too soft, too faint. “Everyone knows your name.”

 

Oh, he is going to die trying to fill that endless, insatiable black hole that is this boy’s heart, he knows it, he is sure of it, even, because he has done it before, he sees it with painful clarity now. And despite that, he will do it again, he’ll do it as many times as he needs to if that means he can make the other boy happy even if it’s only for a few day. He will die again and again and again until he comes to him for good. Oh, he knows, he’ll ask him if they can play music together, perhaps a quatre main, or even better, a duet, he’d play the piano and Shinji would bring his cello. And this time, they’ll do it right, he is sure of that. 

 

 

He hasn’t told him anything yet

 

at the end of everything, there is love

**Author's Note:**

> Writing something that actually feels like EVA is even more difficult than I had expected and I have no idea if that worked! But hey, you can (not) rewrite.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, or rather that you found it worthy of your grace! If you are curious about the other things I do/write, I've got a Tumblr [here](https://algernoninwonderland.tumblr.com).
> 
> I can't promise more fan service for next week, or whenever the second chapter will come out but, oh well.


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